Adaptability and Sustainable Management of High-Erucic Brassicaceae in Mediterranean Environment

The use of high-erucic acid oils is currently receiving increasing attention, due to the great interest in chemical compounds derived from “green feedstock”. At world level, the production of these raw materials is constantly growing, and a real niche market has progressively been created (Mosca & Boatto, 1994). This scenario will allow greater substitution of chemicals with “green” compounds, and the introduction of industrial oilcrops may lead to further expansion of the green market. Alternative uses of crops for nonfood purposes may be an interesting source of profit for farmers, as is happening for higherucic acid oils. The current demand for these oils is still limited: at world level, it is nearly 20,000 tonnes of erucic acid, corresponding to about 57,000 tonnes of oils, used for deriving erucamide and various others chemical compounds. Brassicaceae are the most interesting botanical Family for producing erucic acid, due to the large number of suitable species and varieties, providing on their own the whole amount of erucic needed worldwide. The content of erucic acid ranges greatly, with high inter- and intra-specific variations: within the same species, variations may be very large. even higher than 30%, as for Brassica juncea. This probably indicates that efficiency in erucic acid accumulation may be greatly improved by adequate screening of genotypes, but also that important genetic resources may be used for breeding purposes. In this regard, an amount of 66% of erucic acid in oil must be considered, at least in rapeseed, as the current theoretical limit of accumulation (Renard et al., 1994). For some of these species (e.g., Brassica napus var. oleifera, Crambe abyssinica) yield potential and environmental adaptation have been sufficiently studied in southern Europe (Lazzeri et al., 2009; Zanetti et al., 2006 a), although there is lack of information on some others, such as Brassica juncea and B. carinata